Dr E. Jeanne Harris has over 35 years’ experience in cultural heritage and resource management in the USA and Australia. She is the owner of UrbanAnalysts, a consultancy specialising in the analysis of historical artefacts.
Congratulations on the release of your illuminating new book, Cleanliness is Next to Godliness! What inspired this project, and why focus on Parramatta specifically?
The motivation for this book stemmed from my interest in 19th-century Australian health and what evidence of health issues could be found in the archaeological record. During my research, I discovered a recurring theme that links social values to health, which led to the formulation of a thesis arguing that 19th-century middle-class values are socio-cultural factors as relevant to the study of health as history, archaeology and medicine. In this book, I argue that the concept of ‘middle-class’ values, as defined by most researchers, actually affected all social classes. Therefore, for the 19th-century focus of my study, it is more appropriate to refer to them as ‘Victorian Values’. Parramatta was selected as the study area for a few reasons. Firstly, it was the second established settlement in the New South Wales colony. Secondly, urban redevelopment in Parramatta during the 21st century has resulted in numerous large-scale archaeological investigations (over 100) of 19th-century and early 20th-century sites, which contribute to Parramatta’s archaeological record. Consideration of these sites in a city-wide perspective allowed for the interpretation of documented infrastructure and archaeological artefacts that further our understanding of health conditions in 19th-century Parramatta and the attitudes towards the influencing social values of the time.
What were some of the more distinctive aspects of colonial class structure that emerged in early Australian settlements, and how did they differ from those in Britain?
Australia’s colonial class structure had two key demographic groups that were not found in the traditional British class structure – convicts and the pastoral gentry. To comprehend their respective roles in the emerging Australian class structure requires an understanding of the evolution of the colony’s social, economic and governmental systems.
Of the key “Victorian values” investigated in the book – cleanliness, personal hygiene, sobriety, piety, chastity, hard work and honesty – which do you think had the strongest impact on Australian health, wellbeing and culture?
Cleanliness (of mind, body and soul) is the overarching value for all Victorian values, but individually, there is no one value that had a clearly dominant effect on health, wellbeing and culture. A key premise of this book is the use of medical anthropology as an analytical approach. This methodology contends it is not possible to understand one aspect of a culture without understanding the culture as a whole. Therefore, it is not possible to single out one Victorian value that had the deepest impact on health, wellbeing and culture.
Was there a site or artefact that particularly resonated with you during your research?
Each of the eight sites in the case study were selected because they represent households with differing backgrounds, economic standing, and social status, that were living at different time periods and in different geographical areas of Parramatta. If you ask which site was my favourite household, that would be that of the Byrnes family. They lived at their property longer than any other family in the case study; their gentry social status provided substantial historical documentation, and the archaeological artefact analysis results offered a wealth of knowledge about the household. My favourite individual is Ellen Curling, who was the first woman to practice medicine in the colonies (1878) and the first to specialise in women’s medicine – a true pioneer of her time. The aim of the artefact analysis considered in this research was to synthesise the data to identify patterns of use that contributed to the city-wide interpretation of the level of devotion to Victorian values. No one artefact served to contribute to this analysis.
How do you hope this book contributes to the fields of Australian history, archaeology and medical anthropology?
This is not a simple question to answer. My goal is that this book contributes to these fields, both individually and collectively, to demonstrate how Victorian values served as standards that influenced attitudes towards health among all classes of colonial society. Medical anthropologists define health as not just an absolute state of being, but rather a concept that varies depending on the perceptions of the socio-cultural context. Therefore, for this study, medical anthropology serves as the foundation for historical, sociological and archaeological research, analysis and interpretation. Most often, it is applied to studies of present-day situations. However, this study demonstrates that using a medical anthropology approach to a historic time period enables an understanding of the fundamental importance of socio-cultural relationships in health and illness in that time. This book demonstrates what archaeological analysis results can contribute to the documented history of Parramatta. It provides evidence as to how households’ agency shaped their acceptance or rejection of social values. While there are many dedicated volumes to the history of Parramatta, this book condenses the documented history organised by time periods that reflect Parramatta’s development from settlement until the turn of the 20th century. Furthermore, historical vignettes on several Parramatta residents exemplify the lives of the colony’s early residents. Finally, the city-wide archaeological analysis approach enables us to identify patterns of conformity to Victorian values by the population throughout the 19th century.
For readers interested in learning more about archaeology in Australia, what resources might you recommend?
Where do I start? Since my specialty is historical archaeology, I can only recommend books on that topic. First and foremost is An Archaeology of Australia Since 1788 (2010) by Susan Lawrence and Peter Davies. If someone wants to learn more about how archaeology is conducted in Australia, I recommend Digging It Up Down Under: A Practical Guide to Doing Archaeology in Australia (2007) by Claire Smith and Heather Burke. Further reading depends on what specifically piques the reader’s interest, such as maritime archaeology, convict archaeology, or Chinese archaeology.
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness: An archaeological perspective on the influences of Victorian values and city-wide health in Parramatta, New South Wales is available now.
Order your copy here.